


A Six-Thousand Year Ode

by volunteerfd



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Fucks, Aziraphale's Bookshop, Bath Houses, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), First Time, Gray-Asexuality, M/M, Non-Chronological, Pining, Praise Kink, Virgin Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volunteerfd/pseuds/volunteerfd
Summary: All of Crowley's tapes turn into The Best of Queen, and all of his thoughts turn to Aziraphale.***In which Crowley has been subconsciously saving himself for Aziraphale for 6,000 years while Aziraphale has been fucking his way through the world's literary canon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is very much out of my comfort zone, but I decided to give it a try.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to heyjupiter for looking it over with her keen eyes.
> 
> Inspired by this post: https://currentlybeltingbohemianrhapsody.tumblr.com/post/185408108067/im-kind-of-in-love-with-the-headcanon-that

Sexual dalliances came up in conversation. It was a fact of life on Earth, especially in Crowley’s circles. It surprised him, how often they came up. It was also surprising how often the act itself occurred, given the intricacies involved and the trust required. He was a physically invulnerable demon and even he wouldn’t trust a human, and here were humans constantly letting strangers into their houses, into their bodies, all casual.

It surprised him, given how common it was, and given how long he’d been inhabiting a human body, that it never happened to him.

It was not--and Crowley could not emphasize this enough--it was not lack of opportunity. It was not disinterest from people. His flesh vessel was well-maintained, he kept up with the latest fashions, even his gait attracted attention from certain circles.

It just never seemed right.

And it never seemed interesting, not interesting enough to live up to the hype. Just repetitive gyrating movements, occasionally with props.

But he also knew that, at whatever age humans thought he was, it was unusual that he’d never had the experience--and even more unusual that he wasn’t actually the age he seemed. He was over six thousand years old and still a virgin. He hated that word. It conjured images of white linen dresses and blonde waifs. _Virgin._ He heard the word in the voice of judgmental clergymen. Why should anyone care?

Still, he needed to blend in, so he learned the art of implication through inflection. A little bit of a growl, or a half-octave shift down, a lingering emphasis on a word. He had a good voice for making things sound sexual even when they weren’t. Half the time, he didn’t know _what_ he meant, but he was met with raucous back slaps and appreciative laughter. 

Overseas, the accent helped.

 

* * *

 

Human innovation was a wondrous thing. In Crowley’s opinion, nothing demonstrated that more than cassette tapes. One thin little plastic rectangle stored a good two hours of audio, one for each side, and you could slip it into a machine in your car and get any song you wanted, provided you scanned the track listing and clicked the button to the right number, or fast-forwarded to the right spot, or listened through the ones you didn’t want so much. And then, if you wanted to listen to a song from a different artist, you just had to eject the one plastic rectangle, rifle through your collection, and push the other one in.

It was wonderfully convenient.

* * *

 

Aziraphale did not kiss and tell, but he kissed and implied, kissed and alluded, kissed and let slip and blushed and changed the subject. Whenever he spoke to Crowley, Aziraphale had an undertone of “Oh, well, you know how it is,” which he used as an excuse to trail off and leave the story unfinished, and Crowley used as permission to not probe further. As a result, Crowley had a thoroughly incomplete sexual education from Aziraphale’s anecdotes:

“All that shame over a little blindfold! You should have seen the look on his face when I told him some of the other toys people use.”

“A whole basement of--well, I’ve seen rooms like it before, but never quite so...Some of the devices were positively medieval.”

“The things he wanted to do with a rosary. It’s more common than you’d think. I try not to judge but obviously I couldn’t...Well, I’m sure it’s very vanilla to you.”

In those moments, Crowley wanted nothing more than to squeeze Aziraphale’s hand, look him in the eye, and say “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

* * *

The first time a tape turned into _The Best of Queen,_ Crowley thought it was a peculiar manufacturer’s quirk. Humans were fallible creatures, so why should their technology be perfect? It made perfect sense that Lou Reed’s voice would morph into Freddie Mercury’s. He assumed it was a one-off defect.

Then it happened again, and he figured it was just a thing that happened, like spilling coffee or stepping in dog shit. He brought it up in conversation--”Yeah, like when tapes that’ve been in your car for a while turn into _The Best of Queen_.” People would laugh. He thought it was empathetic laughter at a shared inconvenience.

He couldn’t remember when he realized they thought he was joking, actually inventing the experience whole cloth for the sake of humor. However, once he did, he got downright scientific about it. He got a little black book and recorded every tape he bought--title, artist, price, length, song tracks, genre of music, year of release, weight, measurement, date of purchase. That last bit of datum turned out to be most important.

Then he’d listen. He’d try to go about as normal, but as soon as he heard Freddie, he’d swerve, grab the book, and scribble the time and date down.

Sometimes he’d pull over.

Eventually, he figured it out: it was every two weeks, like clockwork.

* * *

Demons fucked dirty and sloppy and bloody until carnal and carnage were the same word. Angels engaged in intercourse primly and chastely until sex was sexless. Humans, notoriously, fucked every way imaginable, everywhere, with anything, spread out across the spectrum between angelic and demonic and off the spectrum, up and down, left and right, creating new dimensions.

Still, none of that appealed to Crowley. Not demon-style, certainly not angel-style, and none of the infinite varieties of human-style.

Humans made everything sexual, but Crowley couldn’t manage for anything. Not any piece of genitalia, nor any other body part for that matter. Feet were one of the top five most popular sex bits, which was baffling. They were on the ground all day and, as a former snake, he could attest that there was nothing sexy about that. Places, he’d gone through a list of them--hospitals, agorae, the fertile bed of the Nile--and none aroused him. Elaborate scenarios humans concocted, involving sexy nurses in inappropriate workplace attire with inexplicable whips--nothing.

Even Aziraphale, a stodgy-seeming bookkeeper with his persnickety habits and old-fashioned clothes, managed to fuck his way through the Algonquin Round Table, _on_ the round table, and still have the stamina for a dinner party with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.

 

* * *

 

Crowley liked to watch long before liking to watch became the punchline to a joke that had no set-up, as if being an audience member and not a participant was one of the strangest things a human could come up with, sex-wise.

He preferred to call it observing. After all, that’s what he was on earth to do.

He didn’t like the private act so much as the public build-up: a light flutter of a hand on a waist, knees knocking together under the table, a joke that landed and an appreciative response. Humans were good at conjuring something out of nothing—non-physical things, like ideas and relationships. Connections happened in places where they were supposed to happen, in bars and on blind dates and cotillions and such, but also in gloriously unexpected places--elevators, restrooms, banks.

That’s what he liked about humans: their lives were short so they wasted no time, or they’d find someone else and make do, and even if they did spend their entire lives pining after one person, that wouldn’t last long, either, because they’d be dead soon enough.

* * *

_I don’t mind spending every day_

_Out on your corner in the--_

Crowley shoved his entire hand into the cassette deck and tore the tape out, then threw it out the window, the little reel fluttering in the wind like a black Maypole ribbon.

 _“Maroon Five?_ ” He shouted. _“Why the_ fuck _do I have Maroon Five_?”

* * *

He liked those Roman bath houses, and he figured if he were ever going to get it done, the first time, they were the perfect place. There was very little build-up. Everyone knew what everyone else was there for.

He found himself admiring the statues and the architecture more than the bodies, which was a shame, because that's what he was there to do. When he caught people staring at him with interest, he'd give them a confident smile and a little wave, and then turn back to the carvings on the columns.

"Crowley!" He heard a familiar voice exclaim. He froze. It was exactly who he thought it was. "I'm surprised I haven't run into you here more frequently."

"I go to a, uh, well, this one is not my favorite. I go to the other one."

"Of course," Aziraphale said, his brow furrowed.

"It's just, this one happened to be on my way today, so I decided to stop by. Nice column, innit?"

Aziraphale looked down abruptly, then up at the structure that Crowley referred to. 

"Yes, quite," Aziraphale said, now red from head to toe and everywhere in between. "Sturdy architecture here, very firm. Well, enjoy your stay!" 

* * *

 

  
Scores of poets, scattered throughout centuries, unknowingly shared the same muse. They didn’t know that, when they described their ethereal lover as an angel, they were comparing an actual member of that species to an idealized version of his kind. Aziraphale was littered throughout literary history, in so many poems that they could be connected like stars in a secret constellation. And how they raved about him--you’d think he bequeathed writers with sex the way he’d gifted humankind with fire.

Crowley claimed he didn’t read, but that was just to annoy Aziraphale. He liked non-fiction. Not popular non-fiction, not the digestible crap written for the masses. He liked thick academic texts with plain black covers and the title written in austere, utilitarian lettering. Instruction manuals.

Fiction was all thrifty young seamstresses living godly lives in the face of temptation or being punished for not doing so, or long-winded seafarers talking about whaling. Nowadays, it was about siblings reuniting at their childhood home to argue about inheritance.

Sometimes he’d pick up an old book of poetry and skim through some verses about laughing flowers or the sky on a winter’s day, and then he’d invariably come upon an ode to clever blue-green eyes that contained the unworldly beauty of centuries, and he’d slam the book shut and read about toasters.

* * *

_I’m a rolling thunder, a pouring rain,_

_I’m comin’ on like a hurricane_

_Inside my heart is breaking_

_My makeup maybe flaking_

_But my smile_

He wanted to put a fist through the dashboard. Who the hell did he have to smite to listen to AC/DC in peace?

 

* * *

1960’s gay bars were rife with lapsed choir boys. They wore their work suits as comfort or T-shirts as disguises or leather as costumes, but their nervous eyes gave them away. Sometimes they smelled of a woman, sometimes of marriage, usually of moral quandary. Crowley thought of Aziraphale’s refrain: “I try not to judge.” These humans were in a bad situation, with nowhere to flee or fall. They could only escape to these little minefields that like-minded people carved out.

Crowley gravitated to them. They’d go from the club to a cramped bathroom stall or to a secluded area of an empty park, and Peter or John or Paul or some other unbearably-Biblically-named blonde would already be hard, was hard before he even saw Crowley, hard with whatever potential he thought the night had. Crowley was slow to rise, and sometimes it was only through sheer will and dark magic that he managed an erection.

Then they’d grind and neck and rub against each other, Joseph or Aaron or Joshua displaying a hunger that Crowley tried to mimic. Then one or the other would pull away, or both at the same time. You’d think the mutual synchronicity of the decision would make it less awkward but, in fact, it did not.

Bible Name would either fix his pants and scramble away without another word, or awkwardly bid farewell, or collapse in on himself crying, burying his face in his hands as if that hid his despair. Crowley would sit next to him for a bit, trying to decide what to do. Inevitably, his mind would drift to what _Aziraphale_ would do in this situation, if he’d comfort the man and how. Maybe Aziraphale never found himself in this situation before. Maybe Aziraphale was so gifted with easy connections and instant sex and could gift others with it, too, and never wound up with a crying person next to him.

Crowley would sit there for a bit, deciding, and then depart.

* * *

 

 

_Moon River, wider than a mile_

_I’m crossing you in style someday_

If Crowley didn’t want to feel an ache of melancholy, he wouldn’t have made the conscious, deliberate decision to rifle one-handed through his box of cassettes, pull out _Breakfast at Tiffany’s,_ and shove it into the cassette deck, then, would he? The pang was perfectly welcome, if unexplained. After all, as a demon, why should he _connect_ (another awful word) to whatever it was being expressed in the song? He didn’t even know what it meant. Feelings were a strange contagion, and Audrey Hepburn and _Moon River_ were rats carrying the plague.

Point was: he needed this moment in the car, listening to this song, and every line that continued in Audrey Hepburn’s dulcet voice was a sweet relief.

_Two drifters off to see the world_

_There’s such a crazy world to Steve walks warily down the street with the brim pulled way down low_

“ACK!” He squawked, squeezing his steering wheel.

It was enough to make him want a new car.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean that,” he told his Bentley. It wasn't her fault.

* * *

 

Aziraphale slammed Crowley against the wall in the privacy of his bookshop, sending the Waughs and the Whitmans tumbling off the shelves. Crowley could hardly keep track of their hands, but he finally had the presence of mind to fumble around, trying to get Aziraphale’s pants off, if not the dexterity to succeed.

Crowley didn’t make a snide comment about how they waited until after the end of the world to fuck, because, to be honest, he thought he’d have to wait longer. He also didn’t mention that if the world  _hadn’t_ almost ended, they probably wouldn’t have done this at all.

Aziraphale finally realized that Crowley needed a little help, so with a couple of quick, efficient movements, Aziraphale got them both in the nude. Crowley did not dwell on how practiced those hands were compared to his own clumsy fingers.That would've given up the game when they'd switched faces--all the angels and demons needed to do was ask them to demonstrate sexual prowess, and Aziraphale would've rocked someone's world and Crowley would've tripped over his feet. Except they would have assumed Crowley was the sex machine and Aziraphale was the klutz.

It was really hard to concentrate. Aziraphale noticed.

"You alright?" 

"Yep," Crowley swallowed thickly. "It's just--just the adrenaline."

“Do you want me to conjure a bed?” Aziraphale asked. It hadn’t occurred to Crowley that there were no beds in the bookshop, just some tables and the floor. He didn’t want to waste another second, and he knew that a bed was not a prerequisite. They would hardly be the first to do it on a table in a used bookstore. Probably not even the first to do it on  _that_ table, in  _this_ bookstore.

“Er, no, that’s quite alright,” Crowley said, and then found himself splayed on the table. And waiting, listening to a crinkling sound. He craned his head toward Aziraphale.

“What are you doing?” Crowley asked.

“I’m putting on a condom.”

“Why?”

“Force of habit, I suppose. Many humans insist on it.”

Crowley cursed himself for breaking the rhythm, but then again, they both broke the rhythm, and they could pick it back up again.

“Oh, bloody hell, neither of us are human, I know I’m not going to catch anything from you.”

“Right, then.” The crinkling stopped. “Now, where were we? Just kidding.”

Aziraphale took the lead, helped them both into position. The initial penetration was a startle on principle, but once Aziraphale was in and Crowley was over the shock, he thought, _Ah, yes, that is what it would feel like._

Crowley wondered if he should be doing more than letting the gyrations happen. And he had no idea when it would end. He should have read more books on the subject, should have given the diagrams more than a cursory skim, maybe watched a few more videos. But every time he tried to think about actual sexual intercourse, his mind reared back to their last wall-slamming encounter: Aziraphale calling him nice, and Crowley's response. He'd been an idiot then, but he'd grown. The Apocalypse would do that to you. He knew what was important now. He knew what he wanted.

“Tell me I’m nice?” Crowley’s voice came out as more of a whimper than he’d wanted, but he assumed that was due to the natural mechanics of it all. 

“Nice? You’re _good._ You’re _splendid._ Th en Aziraphale was off on the entire bloody thesaurus, and suddenly the hype made sense. It was like the world  _had_ ended and had started anew with just the two of them. Crowley came with a shudder and Aziraphale followed, perfectly timed. It seemed very intentional, and Crowley wondered if Aziraphale could have--would have--just kept going until Crowley was satisfied.

If that were the case, it was a good thing Crowley discovered what he'd wanted.

Crowley sat up on the table, going through the fallen books. He smoothed the pages of _Maurice,_ which had gotten rumpled in the action. Aziraphale could do it on his own, but he didn’t like seeing damaged books, and Crowley magicked the table nice and clean and sterile as Aziraphale stood up and put on his clothes. 

“Was it worth the wait?” Aziraphale asked primly, fastening his cufflink.

Before Crowley could blurt out asking how he knew it was Crowley's first time, he realized, Aziraphale was asking if he, specifically, was worth the wait, and there was no way to tell him that the six thousand years for sex were nothing compared to the time between seeing each other, the days and years woven throughout centuries that they spent apart, the countdowns that started the second Aziraphale left and ended the moment they reunited.

“Was I?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale walked over to the table, cupped Crowley's neck, and looked into his eyes with a searing earnestness that made Crowley want to scream. “You’re worth every second, always.”

Crowley wanted to say something. He opened and closed his mouth a few times but managed no more than a squeak.

“Er, going back a few seconds...Was I good?” Aziraphale asked, reshelving the knocked-over books.

“Top ten,” Crowley shrugged. He meant it as a joke. Aziraphale took it to heart.

“Ah.” Aziraphale fumbled around for more books to shelve and accidentally tripped over a chair.

“Actually, I’ve never done it before.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale sounded like he was trying to decide whether or not to sound surprised.

"So I guess," Crowley continued, "technically, you're the best I've ever had. And I'm certain you're the best I ever will have."

Aziraphale turned red and stuttered before managing a polite "That's very nice of you. And I think I can quite honestly say the same about you. Tea, then?”

Crowley didn’t know if that was part of a normal British ritual or just a patented Aziraphale quirk. As far as he knew, post-coital tea wasn’t a global human phenomenon, but what did he know? He'd been a virgin until an hour ago.

 

* * *

 

Crowley wasn't going to hold Aziraphale to the rule that the driver chooses the music. He kept a collection of soaring symphonies in his car for Aziraphale's listening pleasure. Unless Aziraphale specifically requested a contemporary (by their standards) music education, that was what they listened to. 

Until the strings became the inevitable.

“Oh, bugger. Must be awfully frustrating when that happens.” Aziraphale frowned at the cassette deck.

Crowley shrugged. "I don't know. I've gotten used to it. And besides," he added with a fond smile, "there's worse bands."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Due to the response from the first part, I decided to write a companion piece from Aziraphale's point of view.
> 
> Thanks to praxibetelix for betaing!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for your comments and kudos!

**** Crowley was cool, obviously. Probably the coolest being on earth. Aziraphale didn’t want to glamorize the rebellious lifestyle, but it was a statement of objective fact: Rebels were cool, demons were the ultimate rebels, and Crowley was an earth-bound demon. QED.

Not to put too high a value on “coolness,” which was largely a human construct and of no concern to angels. It simply added up: the black clothes, the sunglasses, the swagger. The swagger! In moments of privacy and weakness, Aziraphale tried to imitate it, but he couldn’t get his legs to bend that way, and his hips did not have the confidence. When Aziraphale tried to swagger, it was akin to the awkward gambol of a clumsy baby deer who did not have long to live in the world.

Despite Aziraphale’s love of language, it was Crowley who picked up on hip neocolloquialisms well before Aziraphale did. Usually, Crowley was only ten years behind compared to Aziraphale’s eighty. And hairstyles, too. Crowley changed his hair as many as three times a decade. Mullets, manbuns, rat tails, handlebar mustaches...Aziraphale would never be able to pull them off even if he wanted to. 

Crowley was so cool that he didn’t talk about sex at all. Rebelling against expectation, Aziraphale supposed, or keeping his cards close to his chest. Crowley had an impeccable poker face. Whenever Aziraphale casually dropped hints about his own sexual experiences, Crowley would merely look in his direction, attentive but silent, until Aziraphale thought maybe the conversation was embarrassingly gauche, or his tales of what he thought was debauchery were sad and vanilla. He just didn’t want Crowley to think he was a prude. Aziraphale could be just as hedonic as the worst of them. He didn’t indulge in the same way Crowley did, but Aziraphale liked rich desserts—why shouldn’t he like sex? 

* * *

 

If you wanted a list of Aziraphale’s favorite lovers, you would start by collecting several hundred college syllabi from literature classes on six continents (Antarctica being the exception). Then you would filter the best writers. Not the “most influential” or “canonical” ones, but the true writers, the ones who used words as magic. The ones who made Aziraphale flush with envy that, as an angel, he could not create, only mimic like a second-hand dealer. Aziraphale sublimated that forbidden jealousy by seducing the artist onto the nearest surface and showing them  _ his  _ talent--but he would trade it for their unparalleled, immortal gift of words. 

If you wanted a more comprehensive list of Aziraphale’s favorite lovers, you would scour second-hand bookshops for the most time-worn books by authors whose names had not been uttered in centuries. In life, these authors would sooner put fire to every piece of paper they’d touched than posthumously wind up in the curriculum for some Poetry 101 class. In an extensive search of thousands of old bookshops, you would turn up maybe three or four of these writers; for the rest, you’d have to go down to Aziraphale’s bookshop’s basement and lift the lid off a dusty box. Inside, you’d find treasures that would knock the earth off-kilter if they were ever released, sentences like strings of pearls, fragile paper crumpling with time. (Aziraphale could repair the paper but he liked the aesthetic.) 

In short, Aziraphale’s favorites were the world’s most renowned wordsmiths, and the ones too good for the world.

And some beautiful dilettantes who, bless their hearts, thought their scribblings were quite deep. 

If you wanted a complete, comprehensive list of all his sexual partners, you would need to make an appointment with God. 

* * *

 

Aziraphale did not understand cars. He understood, guiltily, the desire to avoid public transportation despite the adverse effects on the environment. But let someone else take care of the maintenance, the oil, the paint job...Such hassles. To say nothing of the obsession with makes and models, years and colours. Why should anyone care as long as it got you where you needed to be and you didn’t need to share a seat with a sniffling, sneezing stranger?

When he first heard about the invention, he was thrilled. Good on humans, figuring out a way around their limitations. In his opinion, car development reached its peak at that moment, and plummeted as soon as more colours and types became available. 

And the add-ons. One day, the sun rose and there was music in cars, entire sound systems that were so loud they made the tires bounce, televisions in the dashboard, pine-scented cardboard ornaments, disembodied voices that read directions to you, little stickers to put on the cars’ backsides that advertised one’s political leanings (baffling why anyone would want to do that), temperature control, automatic windshield wipers, roofs that slid away, windows that rolled down. It was utter madness. 

Aziraphale had to respect Crowley for keeping his car fastidiously classic. Except for a moment of weakness in the 60’s when he got little bullethole decals on the rear window—but they were a minor vice, all things considered.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, humans were capable of separating sex from feelings. Often, they failed, but doing so was not an impossibility.  

Aziraphale didn’t realize, until it was too late, that this was not the case when an angel was involved. Sex with an actual angel was intoxicating. Aziraphale theorized that it was human pheromones reacting with his transcendent grace. Or the latent spiritual yearning manifesting with the physical intensity of intercourse. Or perhaps he truly was a tiger in the sack. Either way, he wound up with a lot of lovelorn humans staring at him with doleful eyes, pleading for reciprocity. It rended his heart. 

Aziraphale was a creature of love but a) it was not the type of love humans yearned for and b) he could not explain himself. People wanted a love specific to them. They wanted a love borne out of their identity, their quirks and foibles and faults, hard-won from another damaged being whose feelings had to be meaningfully earned. Love from a creature who just gave it away was cheap. 

He wished he could explain that his love was no less meaningful just because it was er, well, obligatory. Instead, he found the perfect way to encapsulate his feelings in human terms. It was a gentle let-down, beautiful in its honesty, powerful in its succinctness, and it let blame dissipate into the air. 

“I love you,” he’d say, “but I’m not in love with you.” 

He thought that was fine. In fact, when it first occurred to him, he thought it was downright brilliant. But the humans would explode, throwing things against the wall and screaming, “You’re giving me  _ that  _ line?  _ That  _ line, you piece of shit?” 

In less generous moments, in moments tinged with unangelic bitterness, he’d think well, it’s not like they loved him, either. They didn’t know him. He couldn’t give himself to them wholly, not even a fraction of a fraction of his identity. He could not spend his life with them. They loved him less than they thought. They loved him even less than he loved them—cheap or not. They didn’t love him. They loved his heavenly light and his sexual prowess. 

* * *

Crowley loved the Bentley. Aziraphale could tell by the tenderness in his voice and the way he gazed at the car--a soft but intense glow. It was strange, seeing a demon so fond and, not only that, vulnerable with fondness. At least it was for a mechanical hunk of metal. If it had been for a living, conscious thing, Aziraphale would worry that the world had gone topside.

Crowley had come by the shop for the sole purpose of showing her off. (Crowley insisted on referring to it as “she” and Aziraphale went along with it.) Pedestrians passed by, goggle-eyed. Aziraphale tried to replicate their reactions as he approached.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Crowley said. 

“She is very beautiful,” Aziraphale agreed kindly. What he wanted to say was she was a car-shaped car who did car things. Put her in a lineup with five other cars and Aziraphale would be able to pick her out in six tries.

“They’re not gonna make ‘em like this forever,” Crowley said. “The whole industry, it’s gonna go to shite very soon, very fast, and it’s gonna get ugly. Especially the designs.” 

“She’s very lovely,” Aziraphale repeated. “And she, ah, moves, then?”

“Of course she moves. Like a dream.”

Aziraphale nodded. He wasn’t sure where to proceed from there. “Good.”

“Want to go for a ride? Try her out?” Crowley opened the front passenger door, his eyebrows raised expectantly. 

It was a beautiful day. Aziraphale had been planning to go for a walk outside in the fresh air, but Crowley looked eager. Besides, there would be other nice days in the future, but only one first day for Crowley’s first car. 

Aziraphale wondered if he was Ms. Bentley’s first guest. Probably not. Crowley had a wide array of associates who would appreciate a ride far more. They’d be able to authentically demonstrate the right response of excitement and adulation.

Aziraphale slid into the passenger’s seat. Crowley hopped into the driver’s and took off. They sat in companionable silence for a while until Aziraphale asked, “Where are we going?”

“What do you mean, ‘where?’ We’re going for a drive.”

“Ah. I see.” 

“Isn’t she  _ amazing? _ ” Crowley gushed, in a surprisingly squeal-like voice. Aziraphale turned his head to find Crowley beaming at him, drumming his hands on the steering wheel. Aziraphale wanted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road, but they were hardly going fast enough to cause people injuries upon impact. “Look, we’re in a metal box, and it’s moving, and it can take us anywhere, anywhere in London. No magic, no witchcraft...D’you think Heaven or Hell could make a box like this? Fat chance.” 

At first, Aziraphale’s smile was pasted on to humor Crowley, fake—and nervous, too. The demon seemed manic to the point of near madness, as if the trappings of society had finally gotten to him and he’d snapped. 

But it wasn’t madness. It was happiness. Aziraphale felt his smile slip into genuineness.

“And,” Crowley added, “you could fit two bodies in the backseat.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale asked, suddenly interested. He looked behind him. Crowley would clearly want to be on the bottom. Horizontal might be a bit of a squeeze but he’d managed in far less comfortable circumstances, and if this was how Crowley got off, he wouldn’t judge. Plus, it had been long enough and they’d both had enough practice at this point to make anything work.

As Aziraphale contemplated intercourse in the backseat, Crowley suddenly clarified, “Living bodies, of course!” 

Aziraphale’s eyes widened.“I should hope so!” Aziraphale hadn’t considered any other type. Crowley was a demon, but Aziraphale had never figured him for  _ that _ kind of demon. Lines had to be drawn somewhere, if not morally than from personal dignity.

“Well, obviously. I’m not gonna start going around killing people and storing their corpses in the backseat,” Crowley huffed.

With profound relief followed by equally profound disappointment, Aziraphale realized Crowley hadn’t been talking about sex at any point in the conversation.

* * *

Angels had the worst timing. The day Aziraphale finally got his bookshop up and open, Gabriel and Sandalphon arrived to announce that Aziraphale was promoted back to Heaven. Gabriel even presented him with a medal, which was thoughtful. Aziraphale wished he could be grateful. They could have no way of knowing that Aziraphale _wanted_ to stay, that the bookshop was a sign of permanence, that they had delicious pavlova here, but it still put Aziraphale in a snit. 

Crowley had the second worst timing. While Gabriel and Sandalphon were in the bookstore congratulating Aziraphale on a job well done ( _ done,  _ finished, over), Crowley appeared in the open door, brandishing a box of congratulatory chocolates. Again, Aziraphale wished he could be grateful (especially since it was a better present than a medal; Crowley, who had no taste for chocolate himself, went by Aziraphale’s word and got his favourites). 

But if either Gabriel or Sandalphon turned around--if Aziraphale’s face gave anything away--the jig was up. 

“But only I can properly thwart the wiles of the demon Crowley,” Aziraphale said, which was essentially true. Many times, he’d convinced Crowley not to play darts while drunk. 

Gabriel remained unmoved. Aziraphale continued, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice, “Crowley’s been down here as long as I have, and he’s wily and brilliant and cunning…”

In the doorway, Crowley looked smug and pleased with himself.

“It almost sounds like you like him,” Gabriel said.

“I loathe him!” Aziraphale exclaimed. Crowley’s lips jutted into a pout. Aziraphale resisted the urge to mouth  _ sorry.  _ “But I respect a worthy opponent. Well, not respect, because he’s a demon. And he’s not worthy, either.” Aziraphale felt like a right wanker. 

“It sounds like you’ll be an asset back at the head office,” Gabriel said. “I have an appointment with my tailor, and then we’ll head back. You can be with all your friends again!”

Gabriel and Sandalphon departed, and Crowley was nowhere to be seen.

Something must have happened at the tailor, because when Gabriel and Sandalphon returned, they informed Aziraphale he’d be staying earth-bound.

They let him keep the medal, which was nice.

Night fell, and Aziraphale sat in his bookshop, wishing he could feel happier. Everything worked out in the end. He’d keep his bookshop. He’d stay on earth. He’d eat pavlova. Surely Crowley knew his insults were an act borne out of necessity, but Aziraphale wouldn’t truly feel right until he apologized. It felt like the day had been ruined.

Then the locked door clicked open and Aziraphale perked up. Crowley shuffled in, packages in hand.

“Wanted to make sure the coast was clear before coming back.” 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed. 

“Now that the suits are gone, shall we christen your new store?”

“Christen it?” Aziraphale repeated, trying not to let his voice reflect the flutter of his heart.  _ Christen it.  _ There was no way, after all this time, that Crowley meant what he’d said. But, if not after all this time, then when? Aziraphale glanced at the brand new table and licked his lips. It was unexpected but it made sense: the opening of the bookstore, the opening of Crowley, splayed on that table...

“Yes. Champagne and chocolates.” Crowley held up the gifts. 

“Christen it!” Aziraphale exclaimed as if he’d misheard the first time. “Ah. Yes. Champagne and chocolates. A very good christening indeed.”

The table was used for chocolate and champagne while Crowley regaled Aziraphale with the story of how he got Gabriel and Sandalphon to back off.

It turned out to be a nice night after all.

* * *

  
On the rare occasions Aziraphale tried to write poetry, he wound up with plagiarism. 

Obviously, he would never intentionally steal, but when he put pen to paper, he wound up with a mishmash of things he’d read before: I wandered lonely. Two roads diverged. Shall I compare thee to. Et cetera, et cetera. Angels simply weren’t creative, and they couldn’t be taught to create any more than humans could be taught to fly even after spending centuries with birds. 

But poetry was just one drop in the wellspring of expression, and he managed to produce something for Crowley--a perfect mix of creativity and not.

He’d found a restaurant that was close to Crowley’s aesthetic: dimly lit but, for Aziraphale’s sake, not divey, and with an impressive collection of expensive booze. Even the cocktails were heavy with dark spirits instead of juices and sugar.

Before the waiter came around with a dessert menu, Aziraphale said, “I made you a mixed tape.” 

“A mixtape?” 

“Yes.” Aziraphale let the discrepancy pass between them because he wasn’t sure who was correct. He took the little cassette out of his breast pocket and slid it across the table.

Crowley picked it up and stared. Aziraphale had written a list of songs, mostly Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Joel, the coolest musicians Aziraphale could think of, and  _ Landslide  _ by Fleetwood Mac. Then he paid a neighborhood kid to cram them into that little square and written the song tracks on the tape in his near-calligraphic handwriting. 

 Normally, Crowley’s face was easy to read despite his obscured eyes, but presently his features were utterly smooth and still. Eventually, Crowley put one fist in front of his mouth and let out a strangled noise.

“Excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom.”

He left quickly and noisily, his knees knocking into the table, his hands clattering a serving tray as he tried to steady himself on the way up. 

Rude, Aziraphale thought, but with more disappointment than offense. Perhaps adding Manilow had been a mistake. 

Aziraphale tucked the tape back into his pocket and when Crowley came back to the table, both of them pretended it never happened.

* * *

 

He’d considered buying a car once, but at that point it was too late. There was already an overwhelming amount of books and magazines dedicated to vehicles. They were boring, and the conflicting opinions were too overwhelming to evaluate. Whole companies warred over who could create the best version of the same product--reinventing the wheel, in Aziraphale’s opinion. Plus, Crowley had been right: cars got uglier. It seemed like the more prevalent they became, they uglier they got, until the roads were filled with tacky eye sores. It got to the point that Crowley’s Bentley was one of the most welcome sights of Aziraphale’s days.

* * *

For all of Aziraphale’s sleeping around, he did not sleep with as many people as he  _ could  _ have. This was true of every sexual being, but especially true of him. 

Hemingway, for one. Ernest thought Aziraphale would be an easy conquest, but Aziraphale couldn’t stand him. Aziraphale was polite enough in that passive-aggressive British way—clipped tone and stilted smiles—and sure, animus and repression made for some titillating relations, but not with Ernest. Never with Ernest—which, if you know anything about relationships and cliches, only made him want Aziraphale more. But not even a menage a trois with Mr. Fitzgerald could sweeten the pot.

The era of Beat poets had been a tribulation. Insufferable, the lot of them. 

Gore Vidal—once, and never again. 

No one who’d gone to Bennington, no matter how tempting. 

* * *

On June 9th, 1993, Aziraphale witnessed a hit-and-run.

No need for alarm: the major damage was to the other car, but its driver reacted as if the harm had been bodily. And the hitter had sped away, which was understandably frustrating. 

Aziraphale waited until the cops came, trying to soothe the victim who became--forgive Aziraphale for saying so--increasingly annoying. It was before the proliferation of cellphones, so Aziraphale calmly volunteered to locate a pay phone and inform the police. Then he returned to keep the young woman company until the officers arrived, and, since it was before the advent of the cellphone, as mentioned before, it was Aziraphale to whom the woman ranted. He listened to her vent, moan, scream. She touched the tiny little dent and swore, and looked back at Aziraphale and said “Can you believe this? Can you fucking  _ believe  _ this?” And he shook his head and murmured “no,” eyes wide with sympathetic incredulity, all the while wondering when the police were going to get there.

 Finally, an officer arrived to take statements. Aziraphale dutifully reported the circumstances: the time, the direction they’d been driving, the apparent force of the impact. 

And then the officer asked him to describe the car.

“Well, it was a car,” he said. “About the size of an average car, I’d say. Not much bigger. Not much smaller, either.”

“Make? Model?” The officer asked boredly, eyes on his notepad.

Aziraphale’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes dimmed. “It was grey. Dark grey. Maybe black.”

“I suppose it had four wheels, too?”

“Yes.” 

“Oi, it was a Pontiac Bonnesville,” the woman offered, now that she calmed down and stopped casting aspersions on the driver’s mother’s virtue.

“That’s the one.” Aziraphale said. “A Pontiac Bonnesville.”

Once he dispersed to the comfort of his shop, he rolled his eyes. People and their cars. Ridiculous.

* * *

After the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, Aziraphale realized it was now or never. And since it had almost been never, clearly it must be now. 

It  _ must  _ be  _ now,  _ Aziraphale thought as he observed his resurrected shelves with a placid smile. He tried not to look at Crowley, who was sitting in silence across from him. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking about.

It must be now-ish, Aziraphale thought as he swirled his glass of wine. There was still a lot to not say. 

It must be soon, Aziraphale thought as Crowley flung back a shot of whiskey. 

It might be never, Aziraphale realized.

Crowley was on the same wavelength, because he slammed down his drink, flushed the alcohol out of his system with a dramatic grunt, and said, “Can we just do it? Can we just finally...you know? It’s been forever. What are we doing?” Before Crowley could ask another existential question, Aziraphale grabbed him by the shirt collar, hoisted him out of his seat, and slammed him against the wall.

It took Crowley a moment to realize what was happening—this! this was happening!—and fumble with his pants. He was much clumsier than Aziraphale expected him to be, but Aziraphale didn’t stop to ponder it. He chalked it up to adrenaline: the world had almost ended, they narrowly escaped torture and death, and they were finally having sex. 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until after they were done that Aziraphale seriously contemplated the notion that he might have taken Crowley’s virginity.

As a rule, he didn’t do that. Humans were touchy about that sort of thing, and the angel-grace-pheromone situation complicated it. And also it never once occurred to him that Crowley might not have...ever. But, if that were the case, it was a special first for both of them: Aziraphale was Crowley’s first, and Crowley was Aziraphale’s first time as someone’s first.

He’d have a fun time explaining that.

“Was it worth the wait?” Aziraphale asked ambiguously.

“Was I?” Crowley asked. Aziraphale was struck by the sheer vulnerability in his voice. That he would even need to ask…

“You’re worth every second, always,” Aziraphale assured him. He let the words land. He allowed the moment to settle. He was, at this point, quite certain that Crowley had been a virgin.

But Aziraphale still needed to know: “Er, circling back to a few seconds ago...Was I good?” 

“Top ten,” Crowley said gruffly.

“Ah.” Well, that answered two questions. Aziraphale busied himself with tidying up and trying to hide his swirling, screaming thoughts of  _ really? REALLY?! _

“Actually,” Crowley ventured, “I’ve never done it before.”

“Oh.” It was best to take Crowley’s cue and not make a big fuss. Plus, he didn't want to reveal how utterly unsurprised he was. “Tea, then?”

He retreated to his small kitchen alcove to put water to boil and, more importantly, give Crowley a moment of privacy. That also involved pretending not to see or hear Crowley’s victorious fist-pumping dance.

* * *

 

Aziraphale idly mentioned he might be in the market for a car. He thought that, this time, he meant it—until he was curled up on the couch with Crowley, flipping through large, full-colour coffee table books of classic models and bored out of his mind. 

“I think you’d look good in a white 1933 Chrysler Imperial.” 

“Hmm.” Aziraphale rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder and tried not-very-hard to hide how bored he was. He’d yielded page-turning duties to Crowley, who brushed his fingers admiringly down the glossy pages.

“A 1955 Citreon. What do you think?”

Aziraphale yawned.

“A ‘67 Chevy Impala...Out of the question, of course…”

“I like the Bentley,” Aziraphale said abruptly.

“You want a Bentley? Matching Bentleys?” 

“No. I don’t want a car after all. Can’t you just drive me around in yours?” 

Crowley shut the book and slid it back on the table, then settled his now-free arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. 

“I think that can be arranged.” 

  
  
  



End file.
